Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

Kieth,
Soldering smt parts is not all that hard, it helps to have a zoom binocular microscope, a steady hand, a good soldering iron and fine solder  with a (RMA) flux.  I use a Metcal soldering iron and its hands down the best of the breed.  A head band jewelers loop works fairly well but and old B&L stereo scope is better, you only need a few power.  Too much power and the lense is too close to the work to be of any use.

I try and keep my SMT components on the larger side say 0805 or above for resistors and caps.  I have done 0603's but they a lot harder to do then 0805's.

I think SMT is actually easier to do the through hole,  no leads to bend or clip.

Craig